Using AI and automation for smarter government

How AI can streamline workflows and boost efficiency

Tight budgets, growing populations and increasing pressure to deliver more with less – these are all common challenges you’re likely facing in local councils. Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and automation into your everyday workflows is like having a ‘personal offshore team’ that takes care of manual repetitive tasks. Ultimately, this integration can improve efficiency, reduce errors, and empower your people to deliver better citizen services.

In this blog, we’ll give you a snapshot of what AI could do for your council, with a few examples of how it can enhance your workflows and service delivery. If you’re keen to learn more about the potential of AI, automation and integration in your council, feel free to contact an expert at Fusion5 to discuss how these solutions can work for you.

1. Automating budget management

Budget management is often labour-intensive, involving manual data entry, calculations and approvals. With AI-powered tools, finance teams can automate budget forecasting, invoice processing and compliance checks. For example, machine learning algorithms can analyse historical spending data to predict future budget needs, while robotic process automation (RPA) can automatically process invoices and flag discrepancies for review. This speeds up financial operations and significantly reduces the likelihood of errors that can arise from manual data handling.

2. Streamlining recruitment and onboarding

Are you grappling with lengthy recruitment processes and onboarding procedures? AI can streamline these workflows by automating CV screening, scheduling interviews, and managing employee records. For instance, AI-driven platforms can quickly analyse multiple CVs based on predefined criteria, highlighting the best candidates for a role. Chatbots can help answer common candidate queries and update application statuses, enhancing the overall recruitment experience. By reducing the time spent on these tasks, HR professionals can focus more on strategic initiatives like employee engagement and development.

3. Enhancing community engagement

Community engagement and satisfaction are at the core of everything you do. However, many local councils still rely on outdated systems that slow response times and complicate service delivery. AI-powered tools can help you answer frequently asked questions, process service requests, and direct citizens to the appropriate resources – even during out-of-office hours. By automating these interactions, you can improve response times and free staff to handle more complex issues that require human attention.

Connect the technology dots through integration

To maximise the benefits of AI and automation, your back-office systems must be fully connected, and your chosen AI-powered tools must be integrated with those core systems. This means information flows seamlessly between your various platforms – without manual intervention – and AI can automatically pull relevant data.

This trifecta of integration, AI and automation improves interoperability and ensures your tech environment is both sustainable and adaptable to future changes in technology and service requirements. It will also give you real-time access to data so your teams can make informed decisions quickly.

Fusion5: your local government integration partner

While AI and automation present exciting opportunities for local councils, realising their full potential depends on how they’re integrated into your existing systems.

This is where an experienced integration partner like Fusion5 comes in. We can ensure seamless connectivity across all your tools, creating a single source of truth for more accurate insights, and helping you fully leverage AI to make smarter, data-driven decisions.

Want to learn more about the benefits of an integration-first strategy? Check out our blog on the 10 business benefits of an integration-first strategy.

With over 20 years of experience, a 90-strong team of integration experts and a proven method for measuring and enhancing your integration capability, we can help you implement AI tools that automate workflows – without overhauling your entire infrastructure. What makes our approach unique? We’re platform agnostic. We focus on building a solution that fits your unique needs and budget.

By leveraging our expertise, we’ll help you create a unified system that supports real-time automation. This will save time and money and reduce errors. More importantly, it’ll be easier for teams and departments to share knowledge and data and work towards more meaningful outcomes for your communities.

Explore how our fully managed Campfire integration service can support your council in automating workflows and enhancing service delivery.

Cut costs, improve efficiency, and deliver better services

Automating repetitive workflows with AI has many proven use cases and benefits. But the rubber hits the road when you integrate those tools with your existing systems.